Piranha Women

Coming from the director of Beverly Hills Vamp, it's an improvement, but that's only saying so much. There is a good idea here with a mad doctor creating fish hybrid females. I just the drama was mixed in better.

There are seeds of a good concept with the protagonist's girlfriend ending up with the inhabitants and the boyfriend trying to figure out what is going on. The biggest mistake is how it focuses too much on the boyfriend. If more time was devoted to the other characters, I think this would have been a solid B movie. Unfortunately, Piranha Women takes off right when it begins to end. And once it ends, we feel a damp and unsatisfied conclusion. I feel it would have been better to take a cue from Joe Dante's The Howling. A much better movie about a secret society of monsters hiding in a world. This could have reached those heights if only more focus was placed on the other unique elements plugging into it.

Attempting to battle a cancer diagnosis, a woman's visit to a sketchy doctor for an experimental treatment causes her to drift away from her boyfriend, and when he finds himself involved in a series of murders around town has to solve the connection between them to save her.

This wasn't too bad of a genre effort but has a few drawbacks. The initial setup here is worthwhile enough, getting an idea of their relationship being strained by her condition and work issues while also meeting the experimental doctor with his treatments that turn out far more devious than expected. This leads to several intriguing storylines involving the miraculous recovery from her treatments and her subsequent escape into the underground, the murder mystery involving the co-worker, and the race to uncover the exploits of the doctor at the center. That ends up leading into the one issue with this one where, because it's so short and has so much going on, a lot of the horror here gets neutered. While the attacks are bloody enough and have some fine cheesy effects present, there's barely enough of them here with the film opting for a detective angle investigating everything rather than the idea of the flesh-eating women being involved. As this isn't all that logically carried out due to a series of cliches involving skepticism, ignoring clear evidence and failing to follow through on ideas makes it more problematic leading to its issues.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Nudity.

Fred Olen Ray has spent the past 40+ years making exploitation movies. Often the titles identify them as very much not serious movies. Examples are "Beverly Hills Vamp" (starring Britt Ekland as a creature of the night in southern California) and "Evil Toons" (which is basically "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" as a comedy-horror).

So now we have "Piranha Women". The title pretty much explains the plot, and there's some nudity to keep things going. A previous reviewer complained that it focused too much on the boyfriend. I guess that's true, but the movie manages to be entertain the viewer enough so that the focus doesn't matter.

It's a reasonable choice if you're looking for some brain candy. It's probably not widely available; I watched it on Tubi (a streaming service that lets you watch for free).

Piranha Women is a good little short horror film from "Full Moon Pictures" by Fred Open Ray.

An island doctor is using piranha DNA to cure sick women. When Richard's girlfriend goes to the doctor, asks him to stay out all night, then leaves while he's at work the next day he decides to investigate what's going on.

The previous evening, Richard and his buddy/coworker, Jeffrey go to a small local bar. Jeffrey leaves with a woman from the bar, and ends up dead. This leaves Richard as the main suspect. He returns to the bar to try to figure out what happened and clear his name.

He learns about the piranha DNA and sets out to rescue his girlfriend.

The idea of "Piranha Women" is pretty cool. The effects aren't bad for this type of movie. Worth checking out 7/10.

What do I mean by that? I mean that the story, budget, genre all demand camp, but the writing and score want a serious tone, as though we're actually going to be in suspense.

I've noticed this problem in many latter-day Full Moon productions and I wish they would give it up. They need to go back and study what made movies like HEAD OF THE FAMILY and HIDEOUS, or even OBLIVION, so special.

Conflicted tone and an underdeveloped script spell doom for this wanna-B-movie.

Shary Nassimi was perfectly cast as Dr. Sinclair! Very convincing as a mild-mannered practitioner but also able to provide a sinister edge. Unfortunate music choices undermine the subtlety of his performance.

Other performances of note include Keep Chambers' and Carrie Overgaard's. I especially enjoyed Chambers' performance as Shauna. For whatever reason, I never liked Sof Puchley's character. I'm not sure if that is due to the writing or to her performance in the role. I think it's more the former.

Bobby Rice was sufficient as Richard. The two detectives were serviceable, though I blame bad writing and an uncertain tone for their poor performances. They were playing dopey detectives in a movie that for some reason was playing it straight.

That last point speaks to the larger issue of the movie's development. It wants to rush things along, but the writing isn't tight enough to support the pace, so I never felt suspense or concern.

If this movie were a bit more campy, if the music was less over-the-top, if the writing were tighter, I would rate this movie much higher. And it really is a shame, because this could have been a wonderful flick.

Keep Chambers and Carrie Overgaard have a few nude scenes to keep things interesting.